Trick House
by iciclearrow
Summary: A request from JBlaser: Velma wins an old house and meets a ghost who wants to scare her and giver her a makeover.


Velma opened the front door to the abandoned mansion she had won during a national architectural competition the previous week. She wasn't normally too interested in architecture, but Coolsville High's AP Physics teacher thought Velma could take a good shot at it and convinced her to enter. Somehow, the prize house had ended up being a Victorian-era house nestled in the hills surrounding Coolsville.

The teen suspected that the house had been the prize in the hopes that the winner would fix the place up and flip it, but for now, Velma was looking through to see if it might provide any assistance on her paper about the town's history. She suspected it might be one of the older houses left standing, since many had been destroyed in a hurricane and subsequent flash flood a few decades ago.

As Velma began ascending the main staircase, she heard the front door slam behind her. She assumed it was the wind or the old hinges and kept climbing. Strangely, however, it wasn't until she'd gotten to the top of the stairs when she heard the boards begin to creak as if feet were moving over them.

She whipped her head back to see who was following her. No one was there. Velma quickly turned back around to walk down the hallway, but before she could think, her mind registered the person standing not three feet in front of her.

The woman was tall, thin, dark-haired, and incredibly familiar. It was Jeanine Cole, somewhat famous for her many roles in daytime television shows and even more famous for dying under mysterious circumstances while locked in her house alone. Her location of residence had never been revealed to deter snoopers and ghosthunters hoping to go viral from vandalising the building, but if the woman's appearance was any indication, Jeanine Cole had lived very close to Coolsville.

It seemed the moment that Cole's ghostly form had seen that Velma knew she was there, she was beginning to lunge. The spector swept at the teen with long, sharp nails, tearing her sweater and breaking some skin on the front of her left shoulder.

Velma rushed back down the stairs, eager to get outside and call the gang to come investigate. However, she turned back around as she leapt off of the second to last stair. No one was in the hall above.

She looked down at her shoulder. The scrapes were now bleeding. Velma tore off the ripped sleeve and tried to tie it around the wound to slow the blood, but the position gave it an awkward angle and she soon gave up.

She continued making her way to the house's exit when she heard the giggle coming from the porch. Though she dreaded getting attacked by the spirit again, the front door was also the only one Velma was certain was unlocked, or even knew how to get to from the inside yet.

The teen walked outside, intending to proceed to her bike without giving any ghosts a glance to dissuade them from confronting her. Her plan failed. She felt a cold, bony hand grip her forearm as she crossed the porch, and she quickly spun around and snapped her arm out of the woman's grasp.

"It isn't often that I have visitors. Please, follow me." came the ghost's raspy voice.

"I, uh, need to go to the, um, physical therapist. For my eyes." Velma stuttered out. "Yeah. They're trying an experimental new program with me. So I won't need glasses or surgery."

"Well, I can certainly help dress up those glasses, and of course, your outfit! And your hair! Everything about you, I could help make it all so much better!"

"But my appointment! It's a thirty dollar no show fee!" Velma protested.

Cole, unfortunately, didn't seem to care and dragged Velma back into the house, up the stairs, and into a room on the left side of the hallway.

The room looked like the costume room in the theater department at the high school. It was full of all sorts of clothes, with mirrors and various kinds of makeup lining the walls. The actress dragged her to a stool in the centre of all of the clothes and ran to the racks to rummage through them.

A cry came from the ghost's lips as she pulled out a sparkly, floor-length, red dress. She forced it over Velma's head, and the teen realised that it only had one strap, though it was fortunately covering her scraped shoulder and left the other one bare.

Cole ran off again to rummage through an accessory bin, throwing all sorts of hats and purses out before finding elbow-length gloves and a length of white feathers. Velma groaned inwardly at the thought of wearing a boa, but let the ghost drape it around her neck nevertheless.

Jeanine next went to a table full of jewelry displays, which was significantly more organised than her accessory bin, and she quickly found what she was looking for: a pearl necklace and pearl earrings. The necklace felt cold against Velma's skin at first, but she was quickly distracted by the earrings jabbing through her lobes.

"Ow! My ears aren't even pierced!"

"They are now!" grinned the actress, grabbing her arm once again and dragging her to a stool near some of the makeup shelves. "Let's do your nails first so they have time to dry."

Grabbing a bottle of bright red polish off the shelf and Velma's left hand at the same time, Jeanine Cole cackled as she vertically brushed the colour onto the Teen's short, chewed nails. She next pulled out a matching red lipstick.

"Wait, is it even sanitary to use someone else's lipstick?" Velma asked.

"Don't worry, I never got a chance to use this one."

She took pressured swipes onto both lips before replacing the cap and applying a second, horizontal coat of polish onto Velma's nails. The ghost reached towards the eye makeup next.

"Hmm, we don't want to go too overboard on the red, so we'll use this mascara," she said, pulling a (thankfully) fairly tame black mascara, "and this darker blue eyeshadow should bring out your eyes."

The thin, round mascara brush dragged and pulled at Velma's lashes and eyelids, but it was over quickly, only giving the hairs a slight sticky feeling. Cole's eyeshadow brush looked small and fluffy, and it lightly danced all over her eyelids for a couple of minutes.

"Alright, now don't touch your face. I still need to do your hair, and your nails might not be quite dry yet anyway."

Jeanine brushed through Velma's short hair before applying a strange gel and kneading her hair up and down. The ghost walked away and returned with what looked like a wig. Once she set it down, Velma realised that they were actually separate, wavy hair extensions in a brown incredibly similar to her own. She felt tugs on her scalp as the actress attached them, and looked down to she that her hair now reached her gloves.

"Now, it's time for the finishing touch!" Jeanine cried as she skipped back to the accessory bin to grab a shiny black purse, and then to a cabinet, where she pulled out a pair of oval shaped glasses. She handed Velma the purse, set the glasses on her nose, and lead her to a mirror.

"Now you can see the new you! It's perfectly fantastic!" cackled the dead actress.

"I—I don't know how I like this many sparkles. Or dark blue eyeshadow with a black purse. Or—Are these glasses in my prescription?"

Jeanine Cole simply laughed before fading away from behind Velma along with all of her alterations, leaving the girl wearing only her torn-up sweater, her glasses smashed at her feet.


End file.
